Free Roaming in the Past

Hammam-Sousse is part of that African land, looking at Europe as a witness of a glorious past in constant progress, a land that keeps engraved on its soil the inscriptions of the ancestors through the civilisations that succeeded one another, Berber, Phenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines and Moslems. 

Hammam-Sousse, a port of Tunisia the land of the civilisations, terrestrial crossroads and maritime stop, an asset for the Mediterranean, where the orient and the occident meet. 

The presence of men in Hammam-Sousse as in the rest of the Sahel goes back to a very long time ago. Indeed the Sahel had been the bureau of some itinerant sedentary Berber tribes since the eleventh century B.C.. 

During the Phenician era, the Phenician commercial centre Hadrumetum was founded towards the tenth century B.C., which influenced the neighbouring regions with is lucrative economy during Carthaginian and Roman era. In fact groups of farmers and hunters settled in the regions of Blida and Kenta; some tombs give information about the funeral techniques of the ancients who put oil lamps and the ashes of the dead in “jars” dating from the Punic period.

With the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C., the Roman era started and lasted from the year 146 B.C. to 429, during that period the region of Hammam-Sousse knew a lucrative farming (Tunisia being the storehouse of Rome) , but the land was abandoned because of the destructive invasion of the vandals (429-533) and the spread of "Slash and burn" farming methods, which reduced once more the presence of men behind the ramparts of the present town of Sousse. 

Under the region of the Aghlabides, the core of the town was founded, in the beginning, it was built in a place known as “El-Ksar”, 

a small town surrounded by a very high rampart with only one door on the east façade, overlooking the market place “Errahba” inhabited by the El Bouzia tribe.

But the oldest Islamic building was built by “Marabout Sidi Sahloul” before the core of the present town.

The Fatimides, the Zirides, the devastating invasion of Bani Helal (1051-1052), the Normandic conquest (1148-1160), who took the coast from Sousse to Gabes, and the Hafsides (1229-1574), 

passed before the advent of the Husseinite dynasty under whose reign in 1857 “the first map” of the town of H.Sousse was drawn, where there were 14 oil mills, 4 mills, a Turkish bath and 250 houses.

The name Hammam-Sousse is tightly related to the buildings of a “bath” which architecture is not yet identified, situated in the north east of the present town.

Hammam-Sousse is constructed around a group of houses spread over several “districts”, having each one single door that is closed by night. Every district (Houmet) is inhabited by a large family (Houmet Dar Mani, Houmet Mhara, Charâ Chouahda).

On 20 April 1864, men from the arab M'thalith attacked the village of Hammam-Sousse because of the taxes imposed by the authority of the Bey. On 30 May 1864, Hammam-Sousse participated with the 51 villages of the Sahel to this anti tax riot, conducted by Ali Ben Ghedahem against the authority of the Bey of Tunis. It participated in the ranks of the rebels, vanquished in the battle of Kalâa Kebira against the army of the Bey led by General Ahmed Zarrouk. On 7 October 1864, like the other villages of the Sahel Hammam-Sousse paid dearly for the participation in the riot with the execution of its leader El Gandouz and the pillage of a big amount of money about 500 thousand "Rials" From the establishment of the French protectorate, 12 May 1881, Hammam-Sousse participated in the protest movements which was transformed into attacks against the occupation from 12 September 1881. On 15 September 1881 Hammam-Sousse took part in the " battle of Kalâa Kebira"  180 citizens against 1100 french soldiers.

Hammam-Sousse also participated in the fight against the occupation since the beginning. In fact, during the Jellaz events (7-8 November 1911) the french authorities sent to prison :

• Abdelkader Ben Amor Chtioui" (only twenty years old), accusing him of rebellion and collaboration in the events of "Bab Souika" and Jellaz and condemned him to 15 years of prison. 

In the fifties, the village participated in the construction of the future Tunisia, the municipality was founded on 9 January 1957. 

After having consolidated the associations, the scouts movements from 1946, the Sports Hope of H-Sousse in 1954, the theatre youth in 1958, and finally on 2 April 1979, the town has become a centre of delegation. On 7 November 1987 Hammam-Sousse has lived the birth of the new era with the coming to power of “Mr. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ” as president of the Republic of Tunisia.